Yom Kippur: A time to heal

 

If there is one thing the world needs right now, it is healing. Physically and spiritually, the world is lacking wholeness on many levels.  Luckily, tis the season for healing on both of these levels.  We find that repentance and healing are deeply intertwined.  For one, in one of the classic High Holiday prayers, ‘our Father, our King’, the line about repentance is followed immediately with a line about healing.  The Talmud says it even more explicitly, “Rabbi Ḥama bar Ḥanina said: Great is repentance, because it brings healing to the world, as it is stated: “I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely; for My anger has turned from him” (Hosea 14:5).”  When we repent and heal internally, that paves the way for a more general healing for the world as the Divine responds in kind. But what is the key to successful healing?

              For that we need to look at a fascinating encounter between the first father and son in world history fresh off the first major homicide in world history.  Adam meets Cain post fratricide and asked, “What happened with your judgement”? He replied, I repented and received clemency” When Adam heard this he hit himself in his head and said, “Such is the power of tshuva, and I was unaware of it” At that time, Adam composed A song for the Shabbos day”.  There is much to explore here- why did Adam hit himself? Why did he not know about tshuva? Why did that lead Adam to write a Psalm for Shabbos?

              We live in a world where what is done is done.  A car that is driven off of its lot loses half of its value and it will never be new again. It is not intuitive to say that despite an action that was done, we can erase it in some way, and even say that the negative is a positive as it spurred future growth. Adam hits himself in the head as if to say, I didn’t realize we could recreate reality.  But to do that, we need time to reflect.  Adam right away wrote a song about Shabbat because he understood that a set time to reflect each week was the crucial dimension that makes repentance possible.  This is why sickness in Judaism is viewed as something disconnected. The root of the word ‘sick’ in Hebrew, ‘chole’ is related to the world ‘chol’, which means secular.  It is being in a distracted, unbalanced state not connected to anything bigger. When we repent via reflection we rebalance and find our inner connection to something bigger that ensures we live both a healthier spiritual life, and in turn, a healthier physical life.

Using our ears

Using our ears

Every mitzvah is associated with an organ. One might think that Rosh Hashanah, as the name indicates would be associated with our brains, the head! But this isn’t the case, the mitzvah of the day is shofar and that is the only mitzvah directly associated with the ear. Why is the ear the key organ to target on the first day of the year?

 Every day in Elul we blow the shofar and each time the sound is somewhat jarring.  Especially now that we gather for daily minyans outside, this is especially so.  Despite being outdoors, with the sound of cars and buses whizzing by, the shofar sound sticks out with its alarming notes even more now that it is contextualized with the normal sounds of the world.  What is unique about this mitzvah?

The ear is the only organ that has the shape of a bowl. It is an organ that receives from the outside in a way that is NOT automatic such as by sight and smell. Aside from taking in important sounds to keep you alive, such as the sound of a hiss, the ears are the organ that take in new information (granted reading is a sight endeavor technically, we talk to ourselves as we read).  A person is limited to what they are unless they can open their ears to listen to what else is out there.  If a person is willing to bring in new ideas from the outside, then life’s possibilities expand.  But those ideas can only come via curiosity. A person needs to look at the world and be bothered by the riddle of it all. If a person goes through life without awe, and without a deep yearning to seek answers to life mysteries then things remain stagnant. This is where the shofar comes in.

The shofar sound stands out.  It calls attention to itself and asks us to stay curious about life.  This is the job on Rosh Hashanah. It is to open our ears so that we can stretch beyond this year. First, though we need to feel that emptiness around us, which shouldn’t be hard this year with all it has brought.  After all, to be a kosher shofar, the horn needs to be naturally empty.  A horn that is not hollow but drilled is not called a kosher shofar.  Granted, a shofar has marrow inside of it, it is of a different material then the horn and comes out. Once it has been hollowed out, then the yearning can happen. As we start the year, let’s be bothered about  where our growth is and how the world looks, and use that yearning to create change this year.

Be afraid, be very afraid

 

Last I checked, fear is an emotion we like to avoid most of time outside of a short thrill ride or at most two hours of tension during a frightening film. Even then, the fear is only acceptable because I’ve chosen to experience it.  However, fear that is put upon me, such as shaky turbulence on a plane, I can’t wait for it to end so that the tension is released.  Given our pejorative relationship to fear, it becomes difficult to understand why fear becomes the focus of G-d’s relationship with us. It is mentioned double the amount of times of love in the Torah, and it appears from this week’s parsha that it is the only thing that G-d really wants from us- to fear him. 

              Further, if we examine the human reaction to fear from an action stand point, things make less sense.  The goal of fear is to inspire a person to move away from that which causes fear, to create a distance.  If the goal of Judaism is to create a relationship with G-d, then why is G-d encouraging us to maintain a safe distance from him?

              A way of thinking about this is that relationships need fuel to function.  Nothing is more toxic than when a relationship is in a state where both parties feel that they’ve ‘made it’.  As soon as that feeling sinks in, the effort goes down and the cracks start to set in.  Relationships are always dynamic and always need an input to stay connected. The impetus for input is a realization that there is still a distance between the parties, and therefore, room for growth.  A healthy dose of fear reminds us that despite all of our commonalities with G-d, having a physical dimension means there is still a massive gap between us and G-d.  This gap is what makes us ‘fear.’ There is a distance that we can’t seem to close, and fear is the emotion we use not only to cause distance but to imply distance.  However, G-d can’t make us see this gap, we have to realize it is there for our self. Ironically, had G-d made us see the gap it would in the process close the gap; therefore, this is one area of life where G-d stays out.  This is behind the talmud’s famous dictum, all is in the hands of heaven except for fear of heaven.  

Finding the roots

We are a week away from the darkest day in Jewish history. Every year we hope it will be the last, but despite our hopes, it appears to be back and stronger than ever this year. Apart from the worldwide pandemic, the Jewish security situation in many parts of the world is as precarious as ever.  We don’t believe the situation is random.  If things are chaotic in the world that means something is chaotic inside of us. What are we missing that we can’t get right year in and year out?  A hint in this week’s parsha may give us an insight into what is missing.

              Moses spends the first part of book five recounting the conquests that had transpired so far around the boundaries of Israel.  As he does so, he notes that G-d had told him to go to war with a certain nation.  Two verses later, Moses says that he sent this nation messengers to make peace.  This is perplexing- why did Moshe seem to disregard the command of Hashem to go to war and try to make peace to no avail?

              The Midrash notes this aberration and says something astonishing. G-d was very happy that Moshe didn’t listen to his command like an automaton.  Moses thought to himself and realized that while G-d told him to go to war with said nation, this was from G-d’s omnipotent place that knew that peace wouldn’t work. But as a human being, who doesn’t know where overtures of peace may lead, Moshe understood, that peace always come first.  We need to do our part to bring unity, even if the chances are low that it will work.   In other words, G-d’s command reflected reality, but our job as human beings is to seek to go beyond realism and strive for idealism.  Striving for peace infuses the world with the necessary idealism to make it greater.

              The Talmud, unrelated to this story of Moses, says that Jerusalem was destroyed because the judges in Jerusalem ruled meticulously according to the letter of the law and never went beyond that.  They didn’t understand what Moses understood that at times we need to seek out solutions beyond the letter of the law.  G-d’s revealed word may reflect the reality, but there are times to seek out a more idealistic position that is in accordance with how we wish the world could be, rather than the way it is. Only when that fails do we default back into what we need to do given our reality. 

The downfall

It was all going so well. The Jewish people were in formation with proud flags, ready to be sent on their mission. Everyone knew their role and the Levites, our navy seals, were initiated to their role. What happened from that high to a series of calamities that led to the elimination of the entire generation that left Egypt and a 38 year delay before arriving at Israel? On the surface, it seems sudden and unclear why the Israelites turned sour. Beneath the surface there is a subtle hint that not all was going as planned.  Where is that hint?

              After successfully recovering from the sin of the Golden Calf, the Jewish people stayed at Mount Sinai for a period of time studying and expanding their knowledge for 7 months.  After this, it says the Jewish people left the ‘Mountain of Hashem’ for a three day journey. Soon thereafter unnamed complaints begin, which lead to overt complaints about the lack of real food with full tears. Were we so fragile that after leaving the cocoon of spirituality that we had at the mountain that we’d settle back to our old ways?

              The midrash notes that it wasn’t leaving the cocoon that created the issue, but the way we did. We left like school children leaving the last day of school. We were relieved to leave that intense spiritual environment.  This is hinted at because it describes the mountain as the mountain of Hashem as opposed to the mountain of Elokim as it usually does.  We left our relationship with G-d behind because we wanted to tone it down. We still related to life through a physical lens and we missed our physical pleasures that gave us so much excitement.  More than that, it says it wasn’t just food that we missed but we were sore about the sexual restrictions imposed on Mount Sinai- free love was no longer an option.  While on the surface we were on board, deep down our identities hadn’t made the shift to more refined living and it began to rebel.

              Deep down we all have a decision to make. Will we be defined by our physical pleasure or our spiritual ones? Do we go to a Torah class for the free food or the Torah? Obviously, initially it may be for the food, but can we make that shift to realize that true pleasure comes from wisdom?  That was the struggle then, and it is the struggle now. It is a timeless battle and a choice we need to make on a continuous basis- is our main joy in life spiritual or physical?

What we see

In the age of the internet, we now have the ability to see the world all the time.  The question is whether it is healthy to see so much and see everything? There are big expectations to what we see in the world- it is supposed to spur us to action. And according to the mystics, what we see may be a personal message of what we are supposed to fix in our own life.  Regardless, we are not supposed to gloss over what we see in the name of curiosity.  As one Rabbi used to do, he'd read the newspaper with a book of psalms next to him.  From where do we derive this message, and based on what is happening now, where we are seeing a barrage of disturbing videos, how should we react?

              The message is delineated in the strange juxtaposition in this week’s Torah portion by what seem to be unrelated subjects.  First, there is the case of the broken marriage or Sotah.  A husband suspects his wife of adultery based on damning circumstantial evidence, and a complicated ritual is done at the temple to ascertain whether the adulterous act has actually happened.  If innocent the couple comes back to together and a child is born within the year.  Directly after describing this tumultuous event, the Torah then delves into the laws of a nazarite, a person who has decided to become exceptionally pious by refraining from wine, ignoring his physical appearance, and staying away from the deceased.  Why would this exceptionally holy person be juxtaposed to a tabloid worthy scenario of family strife?

              The Talmud asks this question and says that a person who sees the procedure of a sota take place should decide to become a nazarite. Why? Because wine is the type of drink that can lead to adultery. In other words, when we see an act, on the one hand we may be horrified, but on the other, the act now becomes part of normal human behavior and it can seep into our subconscious as a real possibility. Therefore, to ensure that it does not become the new ‘normal’ we need to take an active step against losing our abhorrence of it. More than that, according to Chassidic thought, seeing that scenario was divinely orchestrated because that person needed to work on that specific character trait from the beginning and this was a way of stimulating the person to take action. 

              In light of all we have seen in the past week, from a murderous abuse of power, to looting, these images require actions at the human level. There is insensitivity happening in many directions and we need to be aware of it and make sure that insensitivity doesn’t creep into our hearts, and to do that, we need to run in the other direction. At the very least, we need to increase our empathy and sensitivity to those who are different than us.

Bringing back the lost

Poor Shavuot, it is by and large the least known of our holidays by the extended Jewish people- why? It has a lot stacked against it. For one, it is one day long in contrast to Passover and Sukkot.  But that shouldn’t be damning, as so is Yom Kippur.  However, the other issue is that there is nothing remarkably memorable about the day because there are no actual mitzvot that are specific to Shavuot unlike Yom Kippur which has the funky sneakers and the interminable fast that we dread for months before.  Finally, to add insult to injury, the Torah doesn’t mention it explicitly in the Torah. It talks about it in a most roundabout way, only discussing the technical sacrifices of the day. Why is that? Furthermore, why do the sacrifices of the day fly in direct contrast to what we just experienced on Passover? For a week during Passover and the month when we were cleaning our houses, our sworn enemy was chometz (leavening).  We got rid of it and talked behind its back about how nasty it is. Now, this enemy is granted new life.  It is now extoled and brought to the holy alter as the sacrifice of the day- why the change?

              To unravel the mystery we being with why there are no mitzvot on Shavuout. The reason is because of a verse in proverbs “A mitzvah is a candle, and Torah is like light”.  A candle is a physical object that is able to generate and hold light.  Light is the conceptual raw material that makes a candle possible.  Similarly, a mitzvah is the physical manifestation that generates and expresses a Torah principle.  On Shavuot, we celebrate the receiving of the light, the Torah which is a completely intellectual endeavor- there is nothing to see! For this reason, there are no mitzvot and because it is such a high concept, there is no verse in the Torah that can possibly describe such an abstract and ethereal concept. 

              Furthermore, the verse states, “…you will bring a new offering, from your dwelling place, two loaves of bread…with chametz..”.   It is explained that it is called a new offering as a hint to Torah, which must be constantly renewed each day. Incidentally, that is a second reason the Torah doesn’t want to specify the day.  One shouldn’t think that Torah learning is restricted to Shavuot, it is something that needs to happen constantly. Furthermore, our former enemy is now the hero because of the idea that chometz represents our evil inclination. Unfettered, the evil inclination needs to be cleaned out and not spoken about. However, if provided with a Torah structure, all of a sudden the evil inclination is no longer a hindrance, but something that can be used to enhance all of our service.  Therefore, on Shavuout, we offer the chometz with confidence that we can now control it and make productive use of it.  This is the reason why Shavuot is given short thrift in the Torah. There is not much to say about such a special day. It is a day we take with us the whole year and as long as the Torah stays fresh, it is the greatest tool to bring out our best.